Systems and Methods for Automatically Verifying Packaging of Solid Pharmaceuticals via Robotic Technology According to Patient Prescription Data

1. A method for automatically verifying packaging of oral solid pharmaceutical medications comprising: verifying placement of a plurality of oral solid pharmaceuticals into each of a plurality of dispensing containers, each individual dispensing container being dedicated to a specific oral solid pharmaceutical medication; automatically transferring a plurality of individual dispensing containers to a staging location of a robotic pick-and-place transfer mechanism and verifying that a specific dispensing container is located at a specific staging location for transferring oral solid pharmaceuticals from the dispensing container; moving an end of an arm tooling of the robotic pick-and-place transfer mechanism to engage a first suction tip that is removably secured to a first structure; using the robotic pick-and-place transfer mechanism to automatically transfer individual oral solid pharmaceutical medications from at least one of a plurality of dispensing containers to cavity locations of a product package that each correspond to patient prescription data; automatically verifying that each of the individual oral solid pharmaceutical medications is transferred to a correct cavity location; upon transferring all of the first type of oral solid pharmaceutical for a particular product package, securing, using the end of the arm tooling, the first suction tip to the first structure; and moving the end of the arm tooling of the robotic pick-and-place transfer mechanism to engage a second suction tip that is removably secured to a second structure.

2. The method for automatically verifying packing of oral solid pharmaceutical medications of claim 1 , wherein: automatically verifying that each of the individual oral solid pharmaceutical medications is transferred to a correct cavity location comprises verifying, using an imaging unit associated with the robotic pick-and-place transfer mechanism, that each oral solid pharmaceutical medication transferred by the robotic pick-and-place transfer mechanism matches predetermined physical parameters of an oral solid pharmaceutical that is specified for transfer into a specific cavity location based on the patient prescription data.

3. The method for automatically verifying packing of oral solid pharmaceutical medications of claim 2 , wherein: the predetermined physical parameters comprise visual characteristics of the oral solid pharmaceutical stored as image data; and verifying that each oral solid pharmaceutical medication transferred by the robotic pick-and-place transfer mechanism matches predetermined physical parameters comprises comparing image data from the imaging unit with a library containing a plurality of image data for a plurality of oral solid pharmaceuticals.

4. The method for automatically verifying packing of oral solid pharmaceutical medications of claim 1 , wherein: automatically verifying that each of the individual oral solid pharmaceutical medications is transferred to a correct cavity location comprises imaging the transferred oral solid pharmaceutical medications and matching the oral solid pharmaceutical medications located within each cavity location with corresponding patient prescription data associated with each cavity location.

5. The method for automatically verifying packing of oral solid pharmaceutical medications of claim 1 , further comprising: automatically sealing and printing patient identification and prescription data on the product package once all oral solid pharmaceutical specified by the patient prescription data have been transferred into the product package cavities specified by the patient prescription data.

6. The method for automatically verifying packing of oral solid pharmaceutical medications of claim 1 , wherein: automatically verifying that each of the individual oral solid pharmaceutical medications is transferred to a correct cavity location comprises detecting a break an emitter beam for a single one of the individual oral solid pharmaceutical medications to confirm that the single one of the individual oral solid pharmaceutical medications has been deposited in a desired cavity according to the patient prescription data.

7. The method for automatically verifying packing of oral solid pharmaceutical medications of claim 6 , wherein: the emitter beam extends across one or both of a row or a column of cavity location of a transfer validation unit that is positioned above the product package.

8. A method for automatically verifying packaging of oral solid pharmaceutical medications comprising: moving an end of an arm tooling of a robotic pick-and-place transfer mechanism to engage a first suction tip that is removably secured to a first structure; using the robotic pick-and-place transfer mechanism to automatically transfer individual oral solid pharmaceutical medications from at least one of a plurality of dispensing containers to cavity locations of a transfer validation unit that each correspond to patient prescription data; upon transferring all of the first type of oral solid pharmaceutical for a particular product package, securing, using the end of the arm tooling, the first suction tip to the first structure; moving the end of the arm tooling of the robotic pick-and-place transfer mechanism to engage a second suction tip that is removably secured to a second structure; and automatically sealing and printing patient identification and prescription data on the product package once all oral solid pharmaceutical specified by the patient prescription data have been transferred into product package cavities specified by the patient prescription data.

9. The method for automatically verifying packing of oral solid pharmaceutical medications of claim 8 , further comprising: automatically verifying that each of the individual oral solid pharmaceutical medications is transferred to a correct cavity location.

10. The method for automatically verifying packing of oral solid pharmaceutical medications of claim 8 , further comprising: prior to using the robotic pick-and-place transfer mechanism to automatically transfer each of the individual oral solid pharmaceutical medications, automatically verifying whether an image of a specific one of the individual oral solid pharmaceutical medications matches an expected image.

11. The method for automatically verifying packing of oral solid pharmaceutical medications of claim 10 , further comprising: issuing an alert if the image of the specific one of the individual oral solid pharmaceutical medications does not match the expected image.

12. The method for automatically verifying packing of oral solid pharmaceutical medications of claim 8 , further comprising: detecting a break an emitter beam for a single one of the individual oral solid pharmaceutical medications to confirm that the single one of the individual oral solid pharmaceutical medications has been deposited in a desired cavity according to the patient prescription data.

13. The method for automatically verifying packing of oral solid pharmaceutical medications of claim 12 , wherein: the emitter beam is one of a plurality of emitter beams; and each cavity location comprises a dedicated one of the plurality of emitter beams.

14. The method for automatically verifying packing of oral solid pharmaceutical medications of claim 12 , wherein: the emitter beam is one of a plurality of emitter beams; and each of the plurality of emitter beams extends across a single column or row of cavity locations.

15. A system for automatically verifying packing of oral solid pharmaceutical medications, comprising: a robotic pick-and-place unit having an arm tooling having an end, wherein the end of the arm tooling is configured to: move to engage a first suction tip that is removably secured to a first structure; upon transferring all of the first type of oral solid pharmaceutical for a particular product package, secure the first suction tip to the first structure; move to engage a second suction tip that is removably secured to a second structure; and move between each of a plurality of dispensing containers and cavity location of the particular product package to automatically transfer individual oral solid pharmaceutical medications from at least one of the plurality of dispensing containers to cavity locations of the particular product package that each correspond to patient prescription data.

16. The system for automatically verifying packing of oral solid pharmaceutical medications of claim 15 , further comprising: at least one optical sensor unit associated with a transfer validation unit positioned above the particular product package, the at least one optical sensor unit being configured to detect when a particular one of the oral solid pharmaceutical medications has been transferred into a corresponding one of the cavity locations.

17. The system for automatically verifying packing of oral solid pharmaceutical medications of claim 16 , wherein: the at least one optical sensor unit is further configured to sense when the end of the arm tooling is placed above a specific oral solid pharmaceutical.

18. The system for automatically verifying packing of oral solid pharmaceutical medications of claim 15 , wherein: the first suction tip is removably secured to the first structure using a semicircular retaining structure.

19. The system for automatically verifying packing of oral solid pharmaceutical medications of claim 15 , further comprising: a transfer validation unit positioned above the particular product package, the transfer validation unit comprising at least one emitter beam, the transfer validation unit being configured to detect a break in the at least one emitter beam for a single one of the individual oral solid pharmaceutical medications to confirm that the single one of the individual oral solid pharmaceutical medications has been deposited in a desired cavity according to the patient prescription data.

20. The system for automatically verifying packing of oral solid pharmaceutical medications of claim 15 , further comprising: one or more optical sensing units positioned above, below, or above and below cavity locations, wherein the one or more optical sensing units are configured to verify that each of the individual oral solid pharmaceutical medications is transferred to a correct cavity location by imaging the transferred oral solid pharmaceutical medications and matching the oral solid pharmaceutical medications location within each cavity location with corresponding patient prescription data associated with each cavity location.

21. The system for automatically verifying packing of oral solid pharmaceutical medications of claim 15 , wherein: the first structure comprises a first dispensing container associated with a first type of oral solid pharmaceutical; and the second structure comprises a second dispensing container associated with a second type of oral solid pharmaceutical.

22. The system for automatically verifying packing of oral solid pharmaceutical medications of claim 15 , wherein: the first suction tip is engaged to the end of the arm tooling by coupling the first suction tip with a suction tube that is connected to a negative pressure source and a positive pressure source.

23. The system for automatically verifying packing of oral solid pharmaceutical medications of claim 15 , wherein: the first structure and the second structure are different.